Calendar
The Red Shoes
New 35mm print
Feb 12 - Feb 18, 2010
(Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948, USA, 35mm, 133 min)
A Technicolor classic based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale of magic ballet slippers whose wearer cannot stop dancing, The Red Shoes tracks a ballerina's rise to the lead role in a ballet version of the well-known story.
"Go and be thrilled." -Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
"Watching The Red Shoes, whatever the quality, on the small screen is like drinking champagne, whatever the vintage, through a plastic straw. Catch it here now, and you will not just be seeing an old film made new; you will have your vision restored." —The New Yorker
New Hollywood Cinema
Instructor: Dennis West
Jan 18 - Feb 22, 2010
This class will explore the themes and styles of the New Hollywood
movement that lasted from 1967 to 1980, the year of Raging Bull. Key films will be screened, studied for their cinematic power, and discussed for how they reflect the wider culture.
French Cinema in the ’90s
Jan 19 - Feb 23, 2010
An introduction to the films of the decade, with a sprinkling of French culture. Films studied represent highlights from a decade significant for its artistic and economic transition into the 21st century.
O’er The Land
Seattle premiere
Feb 17, 2010
(Deborah Stratman, 2008, USA, 16mm, 52 min)
O’er the Land is Deborah Stratman’s meditation on freedom and technological approaches to manifest destiny. She captures the marching-band battle cries of the country with a strong, controlled tone that proves its point but is also extremely playful.
For The Love Of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
Seattle Premiere
Director In Attendance
Feb 18, 2010
(Gerald Peary, 2009, USA, DigiBeta, 81 min)
From the raw beginnings of criticism before The Birth of a Nation to the incendiary Pauline Kael-Andrew Sarris debates of the 1960s and 70s, to the battle today between youthful on-liners and the print establishment, For the Love of Movies motivates audiences to consider reviews by the best American critics as a key component in watching movies in a deeper, more thoughtful way.
"Gerald Peary crunches a century of film criticism into 81 minutes, capturing the essence of the curve that began as a scheme to induce studios to advertise their movies in the newspapers and ended in the cacophony of uninformed opinion. It exceeded all expectations... the film is bursting with facts that will be new to many." -Seattle PostGlobe
"Catch it if you're into any kind of pop culture criticism...you might be amazing at how the aesthetics of film criticism developed." -Three Imaginary Girls
Home
Sponsored by the Consulate General of France, San Francisco
Feb 19 - Feb 25, 2010
(Ursula Meier, 2008, Switzerland/France/Belgium, 35mm, 97 min)
As upbeat, jazzy music sets the mood for fun, a happy family in roller skates finishes the match point of a hockey game played out on a strip of nondescript tarmac. Thus begins Swiss-French filmmaker Ursula Meier’s debut feature, Home—in stark contrast to what lies ahead. With its unique style, dark humor and tragic-hopeful denouement, Meier’s film is sure to be one of the most discussed of the quarter.
"Appealingly bizarre" -Seattle Weekly
"Three stars: a wry Swiss absurdist comedy" -Seattle Times
Indigenous Showcase featuring Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey
Director and Puyallup Canoe Family participants in attendance!
Feb 20, 2010
(Mark Celletti, USA, video, 54 mins)
Each summer, tribes and First Nations from Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska, follow their ancestral pathways – traveling hundreds of miles through the waters of Puget Sound, Inside Passage and the Northwest Coast during the event known as Tribal Journeys. Families and youth reconnect with the past and with each other. Ancient songs, dances, regalia, ceremonies, and language that were almost lost, are coming back.
Serj Tankian – Elect the Dead Symphony
Feb 20, 2010
(Madsen Minax, U.S.A. / New Zealand, 2009, Beta-SP, 62 min)
On March 16th, 2009, Serj Tankian, a Grammy Award winner and one of rock’s most unconventional frontmen, took the stage at the majestic Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra to perform a very special orchestral interpretation of his critically acclaimed debut solo album Elect the Dead. The dynamic one- off performance was recorded and filmed in HD by six cameras, and the dramatic result has been captured in Elect the Dead Symphony.
Film Challenge Screenings: One Roll of Super 8
Feb 24, 2010
This winter the Northwest Film Forum’s quarterly film challenge asks local filmmakers to pull out their super 8 cameras and make a film with a single roll of film. Films must be edited in camera, which means the film must be shot in sequential order. No editing allowed! The project is open to all levels of skills and experience.
Nineteen Seventy-Four
Seattle Premiere
Feb 26 - Mar 04, 2010
(Julian Jarrold, UK, 2009, 35mm, 102 min)
Nineteen Seventy-Four starts with the fruitless investigations of newspaper correspondent Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) into the latest missing person case assumed to be associated with the Yorkshire Ripper.
Old Partner
Seattle Premiere
Feb 26 - Mar 04, 2010
(Chung-Ryoul Lee, South Korea, 2008, DigiBeta, 77 min)
In a remote valley in South Korea, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Lee live on a farm with their rickety ox. A charming, heartbreaking, existential buddy tale, Old Partner conveys the almost mystical inextricability of humans and nature.
"This is a great film. You have to watch it. The details are amazing." -The Stranger
Nineteen Eighty
Seattle Premiere
Feb 26 - Mar 04, 2010
(James Marsh, UK, 2009, 35mm, 93 min)
In Nineteen Eighty the narrative focus shifts to the covert investigations of the Yorkshire police handing the Ripper cases, conducted by an outsider to the department, Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine). Ever deeper layers of corruption and betrayal are unearthed as Hunter’s investigation proceeds, coming to a shocking conclusion.
White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
Feb 26 - Feb 27, 2010
(Emmett Malloy, USA, 2009, DVD, 93 min)
White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights is a stylish rock-doc that follows the Jack and Meg White's 2007 Canadian tour. The band played remote towns and provinces, while finding time at each tour stop to make an unusual promotional appearance, playing on city buses, boats, bowling alleys (where they rolled a full game while rocking), and even one free daytime show in which they only played a single note.
Nineteen Eighty-Three
Seattle Premiere
Feb 27 - Mar 04, 2010
(Anand Tucker, UK, 2009, 35mm, 100 min)
Like the two preceding films, Nineteen Eighty-Three gains as much from its stellar cast of new and known talent as from its gripping plot and the stylistic construction of the film’s grim atmosphere.
Danny Yount
Mar 05, 2010
Self-taught designer Danny Yount has become one of today's top title designers for film and television, as well as a photographer and commercial director. Yount will be here to show his work, discuss his creative and technical processes and field questions.
Opening Night Party
Free!
Mar 05, 2010
Join us in celebrating the opening of the 10th annual ByDesign fest with drinks, short films and live audio/visual performances by Iller Aint, Scientific American and Wyndel Hunt.
Seattle Moves: Screening and Panel Discussion
Mar 06, 2010
Seattle animators and motion designers will screen recent projects and discuss their inspirations, creative processes and the behind-the-scenes techniques in creating recent main titles, commercials and short films.
The Light Surgeons
Mar 06, 2010
Since 1995, UK based art collective The Light Surgeons has been developing it's own unique style of creative media “surgery” and pioneering a new form of audiovisual narrative. This retrospective program spans the past decade, from earlier collage films to their latest documentary short, Schlemazeltov. Founder Chris Allen scheduled to attend.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Co-Presented by Scarecrow Video
Mar 07, 2010
(Park Chan-Wook, South Korea, 2002, 35mm, 129 min)
The trilogy begins with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance when Ryu, a young, unemployed deaf-mute, sells his kidney on the black market in order to pay for his older sister’s life-saving transplant.
Curator Talk: Classic Film Titles
Mar 07, 2010
ByDesign Curator Peter Lucas presents an informal primer on the history of film title sequences. He’ll screen over a dozen classic title sequences created in the 1950s and 60s by such masters as Saul Bass, Maurice Binder, Robert Brownjohn, Pablo Ferro and others.
Old Boy
Mar 07, 2010
(Park Chan-Wook, South Korea, 2003, 35mm, 120 min)
In Oldboy a man is kidnapped, drugged and held prisoner in a nondescript room for 15 years. Suddenly freed, he seeks the reasons behind his torture. His search only leads him toward the shocking truth via an even more tangled and perverse path mapped out by his mysterious persecutor.
Eames Design
Mar 07 - Mar 09, 2010
(Charles and Ray Eames, USA, 1954–72, Beta-SP, 65 min)
The husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames are among the most influential designers of the 20th century. This selection of their films playfully documents their Herman Miller furniture, their private home and even a solar powered kinetic sculpture.
Eames Communication
Mar 07 - Mar 09, 2010
(Charles and Ray Eames, USA, 1953-72, Beta-SP, 65 min)
This selection of short films by influential designers/filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames focuses on their exploration of concepts of communication, science and new technologies.
Lady Vengeance
Mar 07, 2010
(Park Chan-Wook, South Korea 2005, 35mm, 112 min)
Lady Vengeance, the last installment of the trilogy, tells of the beautiful but tough-as-nails Lee Geum-ja, who is imprisoned for 13 years for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a young boy. While in jail, Geum-ja sets about befriending her cellmates in order to use them in an elaborate revenge plot against the former mentor who put her behind bars.
American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
Special guests Edward Mast from Palestine Information Project and John Sinno of Typecast Films will be in attendance for Q&A after both shows on Thursday, March 11th
Mar 08 - Mar 11, 2010
(David Ridgen & Nicolas Rossier, USA/Canada, 2009, Beta-SP, 84 min)
Exploring the deeply complex issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, American Radical is the insightful and enraging documentary that follows Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among his impassioned critics and supporters.
"With impressive restraint, the fascinatingly thorny American Radical is less interested in the validity of Finkelstein’s ideas—seriously mounted, if inflammatory—and more in the topsy-turvy life of today’s professional academic. Amazingly, that choice doesn’t result in a boring movie.” —Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
Hillman Curtis Artist Series
Mar 08 - Mar 10, 2010
Designer and filmmaker David Hillman Curtis directs this series of beautifully shot short film portraits of notable artists and graphic designers. Together the films present an inspiring tapestry of images, wisdom and the questions asked by all those who create.
Entropy: New Shorts & Music Videos
Mar 08 - Mar 10, 2010
Creatures, cutouts and colors illuminate the screen in this year’s survey of inventive new short films and music videos from around the globe. Features music by Yeasayer, Grizzly Bear, Ramona Falls, N.A.S.A. and others.
Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized
Mar 11, 2010
(Peter Sluszka, Julia Pott, Guilherme Marcondes, Santa Maria; USA, 2009, 99 min)
After the release of The Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love last year, four filmmakers embarked on a special project to take the album to new heights. Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria created animated films to accompany the ambitious and acclaimed song cycle.
45365
Seattle Premiere
Mar 12 - Mar 18, 2010
(Bill Ross, Turner Ross, USA, 2009, DigiBeta, 93 min)
An elegiac portrait of goings-on in the middle-American town of Sydney, Ohio, 45365 is a celebration of everyday life, mundane and profound. Directors Bill and Ross Turner, using images of their hometown, construct perhaps the world's first rural symphony, a patient, inquisitive and non-judgmental study of community, lives and landscape.
"Captures small town American life in striking cinema verité style that peels away the layers...to reveal a deeper shared experience. Gorgeous" -Seattle PostGlobe
Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle of Wight, 1970
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3FM and Sonic Boom Records/Sony
Mar 12 - Mar 13, 2010
(Murray Lerner, USA, 1970/2009, DV-CAM, 64 min)
On August 31, 1970, 35-year-old Leonard Cohen was awakened at 2am and brought onstage to perform at the third annual Isle of Wight Music Festival. An estimated 600,000 people were waiting, energized by a legendary set by Jimi Hendrix...
"It is scandalous that Murray Lerner’s film of Cohen’s Performance at the Isle of Wight has...languished unseen for forty years. The complete set is nothing short of a revelation." -Seattle PostGlobe
Lunch Films
Randy Walker in attendance!
Mar 13, 2010
(Various, 2008/2009, 100 mins)
One day Randy Walker's bought a filmmaker friend lunch. Instead of owing him a lunch in return, he wondered why not make a film for that same money? The two made a napkin contract with “rules” to follow. Now 50 "Lunch Films" have been commissioned. Like a menu, the series has a wide variety of tastes and styles, from languid, real life documents to vibrant fiction to pure art.